I’ve been going insane this morning, thinking I might have mysteriously lost my ability to type, or even recognize valid HTML…and I’ve been seeing really weird stuff everywhere I type on the web.

It looks like the problem is Webkit, the browser I usually use. I updated it this morning, and it seems to have decided that normal spaces aren’t good enough anymore, and is inserting non-breaking spaces instead. It’s been an infuriatingly difficult problem to track down, because I do most of my composing offline in a text-editor that isn’t afflicted with this bug, and it’s just when I edit that I end up inserting invalid garbage into my stuff.

Your using nightly builds of Safari, not Webkit. Webkit isn’t a browser, it’s a rendering engine. It powers Safari and many other browsers, like Google’s Chrome. Nightly builds are constantly under development, and aren’t really meant for the average user. Sometimes things break. There is a new build everyday, so it make get fixed in the next one. I would suggest using the standard Safari build, that you can get from Apple’s website. You could have the same problem if you started using Firefox nightly builds. You can’t blame Webkit.

Another vote for Chrome. It’s based on the Webkit rendering engine, so will perform much the same, but providing you stick to the beta or full release version you shouldn’t get problems as you describe above.
@NewEnglandBob I found Firefox buggy so went to Chrome! Think maybe it depends on the system or the version you have!

Or perhaps our perceptions of what is buggy are dependent on which browser happens to have a few problems in a short amount of time, based on what we’re doing and when we’re doing it? At least with two browsers like ff and chrome where one isn’t obviously bad.

I’m partial to firefox because I have like ten zillion add-ons that I like to use. If you aren’t going to use all the add-ons and extra features though, chrome is definitely a great lightweight browser.

If by “greater than” you mean more time spent loading and rendering, then yes. But definitely not in rendering quality; they are essentially the same now, with only very minor differences.

Chrome phones home. Like Windows. Or so I hear.

Then you heard wrong, because neither one does. “Phone home” is something done without the user’s knowledge or permission, and to the user’s detriment. Chrome does occasionally check for updates, but that’s the extent of what it does unless you allow it to collect and send usage statistics. Even that’s not a “phone home” because it uses a one-way hash for all potentially identifying information. That means it can collect data that is unique per user without the ability to actually identify the user on the remote end. Windows does essentially the same things.

PZ, one thing you may notice about Chrome is that it can have trouble interpreting the encoding of some pages, but this is due to the fact that the page itself is using multiple encodings, or declares the wrong one. If you see weird characters, select a different encoding in the menu and it should clear up. Other than that, you should notice no real functional difference from what you were using except that the Chromium browsers tend to be more stable than the raw WebKit packages. Errors like the one you experienced don’t appear because the WebKit engine is tested before being imported into the project.

Oh – and get on the Beta channel if you can. For non-Windows platforms, it’s really the best place to be while all the features are being added. It’s not as scary as you would think, either. If there’s a big problem (which are rare), it’s usually resolved in a day or two.

I use it for more than 10 years now, on Windows, MacOS and Linux for browsing and mail. Not only I can’t complain about it, but it’s one of the quickest browsers, it has no problem managing the two dozens tabs I usually have open (it should–it practically launched tabbed browsing) and its shortcuts, “notes” and—especially—mouse gestures are priceless.

The only thing I find annoying is that it doesn’t have a decent plugin system. It has “widgets”, ut they’re rather lousy implementations. But then again, the only plugin I really miss fomr Firefox is AdBlock (Opera’s blocking feature was buggy until recently.)

Still think that FF is better.
Chrome does phone home a lot. I read in PC Pro (UK Magazine) that everything that you type into chrome, irrelevant of whether you actually sent it or not, gets sent to the google servers.
But I don’t know why I’m complaining, I’m using Windows Vista…

I’m pretty happy with FF. I’ve been using it for years and haven’t encountered many bugs or disagreements with other software. And I think Google knows enough about me as it is so I’m not going anywhere near Chrome. No matter what their current privacy policies are, they are subject to change without notice (as evidenced by the Buzz fiasco).

I use Opera because of the mouse gestures and because it integrates RSS and email far better than anything else at the moment.

Mousegestures: YAY!

RSS: Fscked up.

I irregularly found posts archived in the wrong feeds. Or in the mail. And they could then no be moved at all, only deleted.

Then my mail started showing up in my feeds.

Then all the old posts disappeared after an update.

Then I caved in and adopted Google Reader.

I’ve found now that IE opens new tabs in a sorta logical place, but I still only like the tab-navigation in Opera – LIFO. FF and IE seem to work with fixed order, which annoys me since I then have to keep track of whether to go back or forth. And I can’t right-click and scroll.

But they’re all just browsers. It’s a matter of what you’re used to.

(I started out with Netscape years ago, switched to FF when N died. Tried O while it still had adds and found it lacking. Tried O again after it became free when I was fed up with FF freezing for the umpteenth time just because I told it to “open all all tabs” my comics”. Only switching from O these days when there’s the occasional problem with Java or websites that only run under IE.)

Chrome does phone home a lot. I read in PC Pro (UK Magazine) that everything that you type into chrome, irrelevant of whether you actually sent it or not, gets sent to the google servers.

Um. Don’t give into Microsoft’s FUD on the issue. Chrome “phones home” in much the same way as Windows does, which is to say not at all. Any identifying information is transmitted in a one-way hash that is not tied to account information. Yes, it is an identifier to some degree, but that identifier only points to the browser installation and not the your name, the software you have installed, or even the websites you visit (any more than a session cookie might, at least). Really. It bugs us security experts when the mass media magnifies non-issues such as these and completely glosses over the really important ones, such as spam backscatter caused by trigger-happy filters.

Chrome is great. It’s extremely fast (thanks to its V8 Javascript engine) and stable (thanks to separate processes for each tab and plugin). It’s my browser of choice now, except when I have to do web development (Firefox + Firebug + Web Developer Toolbar is just too wonderful to ignore). Also, Chrome has extensions now–not as many as Firefox at the moment, but it has most of the most popular ones. Firefox still has that horrible memory leak that makes it gobble up memory if left open too long.

I would suggest Opera, with Firefox as a backup for dealing with the small number of websites that are deliberately programmed not to work in Opera.* Seriously; everything about FireFox that I particularly like was obviously copied from Opera (tabbed browsing was already implemented back in 2002ish, for instance), everything about later Opera version default settings that annoys me was obviously implemented to make the browser more “friendly” to people switching from FireFox, and every time I look at the incredibly limited range of settable options in FireFox’s default configuration I cringe hard.

*(This is perhaps a slightly hyperbolic characterization, but there are a few websites where the scripting doesn’t work correctly in Opera, even though the functionality the website provides is identical to the functionality of other websites that work just fine, indicating that there is no good reason for these not to work as well.)

Anyway, I use Firefox because it was sort of default on the first Linux distro I used. And anyway, 3.5 is a big improvement over 2.0 and 3.0.

PZ: never, never, never use nightly builds for anything, unless you are a developer. Even if you have a weird problem not solved except in a bleeding edge build, you should get the source, patch it with the fix, and recompile.

It’s possible I’m mistaken, but how is this Microsoft’s FUD? Looking back to see what was being talked about, I believe I’ve traced it to this article. Interesting sidenote: I couldn’t find it using the built in search function on the site; I had to search for it with Google.

Not a single mention is made of Microsoft in that article. Microsoft does produce FUD, but PC Pro isn’t owned by Microsoft, this article doesn’t reference Microsoft, and the article itself is reasonably accurate, if obviously intending to make news that should already be obvious to anybody who uses the browser. If you’re typing something in and new results are popping back, those results are coming from somewhere!

Not touching anything softwarey from google with a ten-foot pole.
And to choose Chrome because its pretty is a little bit like choosing a Hyundai because it has nice cupholders.
And whether, and to what degree any application phones home, the fact alone that I have to worry about it makes me stay away from the thing, and especially if it’s from google.

I have seven browsers, most of which I never use except to check on display issues with a web site I maintain. The only time I had a problem with FF was about 2 upgrades back; a subsequent Windows upgrade corrupted FF. Uninstall & reinstall of FF fixed everything and there have been no problems since. Opera may appear faster, but it’s so plain-Jane plain.

I have been an Opera user for about a decade. I remember laughing at people who proclaimed how innovative Firefox was when they added tabbed browsing, years after I’d been using it. Then Opera 10 came out. It was a gigantic load of crap, and not just any crap, it was the sickeningly-sweet-smelling bad-meat-diarrhea type of crap.

So I reinstalled version 9.x. It didn’t take. So I uninstall version 10. It deletes everything in my Application Data folder, bookmarks, passwords, everything.

I no longer use Opera.

After suffering with Firefox for a while, with it’s horrible bloat and crappy mouse gesture plugin, I installed Chrome. I still don’t have mouse gestures, but in all other ways, Chrome rocks my socks.

Chrome sends details about its usage to Google through both optional and non-optional user tracking mechanisms.[98]
Tracking methods Method[99] Information sent When Optional?
RLZ identifier[100] Encoded string, according to Google, contains non-identifying information used for statistics. Although there is no way to confirm this.[note 1][101]

* On Google search query
* Every 24 hours
* On installation and other significant events[101]

No
clientID[102] Unique identifier along with logs of usage metrics and crashes. Unknown Yes[103]
Suggest[102] Text typed into the address bar While being typed Yes
Page not found Text typed into the address bar Upon receiving “Server not found” response Yes
Bug tracker Details about crashes and failures Unknown Yes[103]

It seems to work fine for others, but if you do have that issue (which I do, using SeaMonkey), I simply disable compatibility checking, or edit the extension to reflect the version I am using. Never had any problems.

#61:

That’s a rather stupid decision to make as a broad rule.

No, not really. Miss their latest debacle, did you? And all the previous ones? And all the quotes from their corporate officers? And their EULA?

Whatever, I use some of Google’s stuff, but it is a good idea to use adjunct measures to keep their usage tracking out, and clear their caches of your activities (which Google has indeed thoughtfully made possible recently). Sorry, but any company has the rights to the content of email which passes through their servers can just bite me.

It seems to work fine for others, but if you do have that issue (which I do, using SeaMonkey), I simply disable compatibility checking, or edit the extension to reflect the version I am using.

Well, I uninstalled & reinstalled it. 1st time I’ve ever seen anything go haywire w/FF. I do recall that it worked on & off (flaky) w/3.5.8, but shot up to 3.6.
Works fine now. (shaking head, muttering.)

@ 66:
Thanks, F. I’ve been using FF since its inception way back when – & this is the 1st time I’ve had any issues w/it @ all. So it was a bit of a surprise, is all. Shouldn’t have been, but got complacent.

I updated WebKit/Safari this morning too and there are no problems with it at all. The bug is likely elsewhere. As for the overall best Mac browser, it’s OmniWeb. Try a recent SneakyPeek build http://preview.tinyurl.com/33hn3p and see how to get site by site customization without adding extensions; it’s faster than Firefox, too.

hat -> ring. I use Chrome, and love it. It gives the impression that there’s very little between you and the Wonderful Web. (Looking at the memory usage, that impression is completely incorrect, of course).

The only time I need to use another browser (The Big Bad One) is when I’m doing internet banking – Chrome isn’t too happy about clicking on the buttons on that site for some reason. (That was a few months ago, I should see if the updates have fixed that).

That said, this discussion is entirely religious in nature. You can tell – whichever non-IE browser each poster is using is simply the best. The Best.

I tried Chrome a while back, I did. I was happy with both FF and O, which I use in tandem, but I?m always willing to try something new, if it comes with good vibes (so, not willing to try the latest IE ? dropped it at v5 or some such).

But I soon found out that not only Chrome does not inherit the user?s layout settings but also allows me to change the UI skin ? forcing me to use this instead of this (or whatever I want).

Well. Firefox has the disadvantage of not supporting authorware properly, especially in non-windows environment. This shouldn’t be a problem because not a single soul in this universe still uses authorware; except @UU.. of course.
I still like it

To clarify, WebKit is *not* a browser. It is the rendering engine used by such browsers as Safari, Chrome, Omniweb, and a few others.

Even WebKit nighttlies are *not* browsers. They are the rendering engine nightlies, packed in a mini application that is *not* a browser.

That mini application does two things:

1) it redirects all calls to WebKit the rendering engine to the nightly version.

2) it launches Safari

So the WebKit nightlies look like a browser, but in fact the said browser is Safari, equipped with the nightly webkit.

Needless to say, unless all this is very straightforward to you, it is *not even wrong* to run the WebKit nightlies.

So PZ, if you switch to Chrome, not only will you not move away from WebKit (since Chrome uses WebKit), but you are going to fix your issue the wrong way. The right way is to keep your browser (Safari), with a stable version of WebKit (probably the one shipped with Safari).

Now there may be reasons to switch to Chrome. Fixing a WebKit issue is not one.

I agree with Rorschach. Google has turned creepy. I’ve had an anonymous youtube account to keep favorites and such organized, and one time it told me I HAD to link to a gmail account. Stupid me, I use the gmail with my first/lastname to link it.

Suddenly a few days later I notice that my email is right there for everyone to see. I don’t really care since I don’t use gmail but many people put personal details in their profiles now, and who knows what could get published when google makes you “integrate” all their services.

Webkit is a great rendering engine, unfortunately, no one has yet built a great browser with it.

Switching to Chrome my well solve PZ’s problem, unless he gets a Chrome dev build with the same webkit version. As far as not using Chrome for privacy reasons, that is everyone’s choice to make, but really Chrome isn’t telling Google much more than you tell Google by using their search engine.

Opera – well, more competition is good, by it seems to me that they are really struggling to keep up with Gecko and Webkit. It’s not surprising, since they have to do all the work themselves, while Gecko has both paid Mozilla Foundation contributors, and unpaid community contributors. And Webkit has paid and unpaid contributors from Apple, Google, Nokia, Gnome and KDE

TraceMonkey is faster than V8 or Nitro in places where tracing is useful – mainly loops with little branching, but much slower otherwise. JagerMonkey will bring Nitro-like general JIT to Gecko, as well as tracing, which Nitro and V8 do not have (nobody outside Opera knows Carakan does, except that it’s fast).

FF leaks memory? Not in a long time, and that issue was fairly rare to begin with. It seems like people often mistake “memory legitimately used (and later released correctly) because modern browsers and pages are complex” with “memory leaks” which are entirely different.

Stability-wise, it always seems like most of the problems are on Windows which is sad, since more of Mozilla’s Dev-hours go to Windows than *nix.

As far as not using Chrome for privacy reasons, that is everyone’s choice to make, but really Chrome isn’t telling Google much more than you tell Google by using their search engine.

It’s not what Chrome tells google, it’s what google tells the public. I don’t use any google services, and if I have to, (youtube for instance) I make damn sure I don’t put any personally identifiable info in my profile. I’m not paranoid, I don’t think even if it were published in the Times anyone would care, but I think it’s just untrustworthy how google has been behaving the past few years.

FYI, though — you should be linking to getfirefox.com, not getfirefox.net. The “.net” version isn’t affiliated with Mozilla in any way, and its domain-owner is hidden in the WHOIS records, so we have no idea who controls it. (that’s a bit sketchy for a site that you trust to provide you with software.)

Right now, the links from the .net page happen to be genuine, but that might not always be the case.

I’m a HUGE webkit proponent. But why are you, a non-developer, using it? Webkit is merely the severely unstable and unreliable version of apple’s Safari, and underlying framework to chrome. Use safari or chrome, don’t fiddle with developer versions unless you are willing to live with the consequences of an unstable development browser. You will get all the goodies of webkit soon enough (really, the next update to safari/chrome is never far away). Firefox is great too. I enjoy it. But I enjoy the webkit engine more (its way faster, and more standards compliant).

Opera – well, more competition is good, by it seems to me that they are really struggling to keep up with Gecko and Webkit.

Not quite. Opera 10.5 is currently the fastest and most advanced desktop browser. It was lagging behind a bit before 10.5, but has now caught up, and then some. In addition to beating everyone else at performance tests, it also has probably the most advanced standards support out there at the moment.

Gecko is the slowest engine at the moment, with the exception of IE’s Trident. Presto and Carakan (Opera’s rendering and JS engines) are the fastest.

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